iOS - page 161

One of the best things about a device like the iPhone is that you can enjoy constant connectivity with your favorite social networks – wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. As one of the most popular social networks, it’s no wonder there’s a shed-load of third-party Twitter clients in the App Store, but how do you separate the good from the poor and decide which is best for you?

If you’re not keen on the official Twitter app, check out our list of the best 8 third-party Twitter apps for iOS after the break.

Rovio Mobile, the creator of the hugely successful series of Angry Birds games, has revealed in a message posted on Twitter that it is working on a solution to bring game syncing across all devices. The feature would enable players to begin a game on their iPad at home, which they could then continue from where they left off on their iPhone on the train. When you unlock a new level on one device, you unlock the level on all devices.

Game syncing is a feature that many iOS games would benefit from. As more and more games and applications become universal and playable on both the iPhone and the iPad, one of the biggest frustrations is that you have to complete the same levels, missions, and objectives twice – once on each device. The same goes for high scores.

Rovio has also confirmed a forthcoming Easter update to Angry Birds Seasons – due sometime next week – which will deliver 15 brand new levels to enjoy while you devour your eggs. And if you didn’t have enough platforms the play Angry Birds on, the Facebook version of the game will also get three new levels so that it doesn’t feel too left out.

[via AppAdvice]

What’s better than a free app? Yeah, two of them — so today’s Daily Freebie is actually a twofer. Both are from MacPhun, developer of the PhotoStudio app we reviewed yesterday.

The first is a free version of PerfectPhoto, macPhun’s iPhone photo editor. It may lack the fancy filters of the paid version, but it comes with all the darkroom tools you’ll need to edit photos on the iPhone: adjust exposure, contrast, color temp, shadows, crop images and even a posterize and vintage effect. Frankly, you’re going to be using PhotoStudio for the effects anyway.

The second app, Cartoonatic, (that’s a screencap from its App Store page, above) is where the real fireworks are, though — it’ll let you transform a video clip with nine different, wild-looking effects, with live previews while recording, the ability to play around with the clip’s speed, add a soundtrack from your music library and all kinds of other neat stuff. That’s a lot of wow for free.

At an event in London today, HTC unveiled a brand new addition to its ever growing smartphone lineup called the Sensation 4G. Boasting 4G data connectivity, a Super LCD screen, and a dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon CPU, the Sensation is a worthy adversary for the iPhone 4. So how do the two compare?

We’ve created a great little comparison that compares all of the main specifications, helping you decide which device deserved your hard earned cash. Check it out after the break!

According to several reports from various sources recently, it seems there could be a nasty ‘virus’ lurking in dodgy internet adverts that wipes your iOS device when you tap on them. Users searching for jailbreak and unlock methods on their devices are the ones currently at risk.

When performing a search for these hacks on an iOS device, false adverts are returned that claim to unlock your device for free. Tapping on them takes you to a webpage that shows an animation lasting 10 to 15 seconds, followed by a message that says: “DOWNLOAD UNLOCK 2 NOW FREE.” By this point the device is completely wiped of all your information.

A new service from Piecable, called Piecable Viewer, allows you to run iOS applications in your web browser. They’re not just watered down demos either; they’re complete applications – just like you’d get from the App Store – that run on Flash with just one additional line of code.

The service provides developers with a great way of giving people access to their applications for testing, without having to worry about iTunes redemption codes or the UDID limit Apple places on developer accounts. All they have to do is sign up to the Piecable service and choose one of its tiered pricing plans, add an extra line of code to their application, and upload it to the service. They receive a link to the app on the web which can be sent out to agencies, clients, organizations, and the press, enabling the recipient to play around with the application in their web browser.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTuniZZA1VY

A new iPhone application called Friends Aloud from VoiZapp uses state of the art text-to-speech technology to read aloud your Facebook news feed. It cycles through your friends’ status updates, as well as the associated comments, and reads them out in a pleasant, easy to understand voice.

For Facebook addicts Friends Aloud allows you to peel your eyes away from your iPhone or computer screen but remain up to date. Leave your device in your bag, pocket, or on your desk, and carry on with your day while you listen to everything that’s happening on Facebook.

It’s no secret that the iPad 2 should open the floodgates of the augmented reality experience — and here’s another example of what the iPad 2 can do with AR.

No doubt in anticipation of Yuri’s Night, Vito Technology has just released an AR-equipped version of their venerable star-watching iPad app, Star Walk ($5). Just hold the screen up to the sky and the app will superimpose constellations and all sorts of other info onto a realtime image of the sky being viewed through the iPad 2’s camera. And that’s on top of all the other cool features, like a satellite tracker, night mode and a time-machine function that lets you see what the sky looks like on any given day or time.

Still saving for an iPad 2? That’s ok, the iPhone version has the same features (but not the awesomeness of the iPad’s giant screen), and it’s on sale for a buck till April 12 — which, not coincidentally,  is Yuri’s Night.

Just like Pogoplug and ZumoCast (the latter currently MIA from the app store), Tonido is a service that’ll let users stream media and access files on a computer from a mobile device. It sort of combines features from both — it’s completely free, works via a mobile app that connects to server software (free download from Tonido) running the user’s computer and allows access to music, videos, photos and even plain ‘ol documents. In fact, pretty much everything on a connected hard drive is accessable.

The big difference with Tonido though, is that virtually nothing is stored in a cloud — not even your account password (“think of the Tonido server like a giant router” says co-founder Venkat Ramasay). Don’t want to use your computer as the server? Tonido sells a remarkably-Pogoplug-looking NAS device for $99 that you can plug an external HDD or USB stick into. Ramasay says the software footprint is also very small, and that’s it’s also intended to run on home routers.  The next version will also support Airplay.

The interface seems a little rough around the edges — I wasn’t able to stream music because I couldn’t figure out a way to simply select music to play, for instance — but it’s free, so worth taking a look at.

This weekend sees the final of the 2011 Masters Golf Tournament, and as a way of celebrating, EA has reduced some of its most popular iPhone and iPod touch games by up to 67%. Of course, the brand new Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 is the one you’ll want most during the Masters commercial breaks.

There are 10 great games featured in the sale, including Dead Space, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, The Sims 3, and The Simpsons Arcade. Check out the full list after the break!

There are plenty of photo apps that do pixellation effects, but Pixel Face grabbed my attention because of the way it embraces the whole 8-bit world of pixels.

It’s not just the photos that look colorful and retro, it’s the app itself. The buttons are cheerfully bright, the sounds are like something your games console used to do back in the 1980s.

ChuChu Rocket! is packed with over 500 puzzles and frantic 4 player multiplayer action, and the Sega Dreamcast classic, which has proven to be a massive iOS hit in the App Store, has gone completely free for one day only.

10 years ago, a cute group of ChuChu’s invaded the hearts and minds of gamers as they looked for an escape plane away from the evil KapuKapus into their cozy rocket ships. now, you get to re-live the glory days of frantic puzzle fun on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad!

ChuChu Rocket! features four different difficulty levels to maximise its replay value; in addition to a free-for-all and team battle multiplayer mode with support for up to 4 players. Battle it out over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi across 25 intense multiplayer levels.

As one of the most popular puzzle games in the App Store, ChuChu Rocket! is a surefire way to cure your weekend boredom. Grab it now while it’s free!

According to a source for Boy Genius Report, Apple is working on the next release of iOS and planning to release the firmware to the public during the next two weeks. iOS 4.3.2 will include a few enhancements, address security issues, and fix several bugs that have effected some users.

Unfortunately the details handed over to BGR are a little limited, so we’re unable to report what enhancements or bug fixes will be made in the next iOS release. Although, issues with Wi-Fi that effects users with certain routers, and a problem with the taking photographs on the iPad 2, have been picked up in iOS 4.3.1.

BGR sources seem to have been consistent with their information in recent months, revealing on March 21st that iOS 4.2.1 would launch within two weeks – 4 days before it went live.

As always, we’ll let you know when iOS 4.3.2 is available to download.

Retro gamers can now enjoy 100 classic Atari titles on their iOS devices thanks to the launch of Atari’s Greatest Hits. The application is a free download that comes bundled with Pong, and through in-app purchases users can download additional game packs at $0.99 each, or the entire collection of 100 games for $14.99.

The collection of classic hits includes 18 Atari arcade games and 92 Atari 2600 games. But the fun doesn’t stop there; the app also boasts head-to-head multiplayer over Bluetooth and original cabinet and box art.

Check out the entire list of games available – and those that support Bluetooth multiplayer – after the break.

We’ve been keen followers of developments at CloudEngines, the outfit behind the Pogoplug network-attached storage device, ever since we reviewed the first one back in late 2009. This month, a little over two years after the Pogoplug debuted, brings a whole raft of new offerings from the company — including one that may bring a big surge to NAS popularity in general.

The iOS 4.3 update enabled third-party applications to take advantage of AirPlay and stream content to the AppleTV and other compatible devices. Since it went live, developers have been updating their apps to include AirPlay support, and we’ve put together a list of the top 10 iOS apps that are currently AirPlay ready. We’ve chosen apps to keep you entertained, up to date with the latest news, and even one to help you workout.

Check them out after the break!

An update to the ultrasn0w unlocking tool that will fix bugs with the latest version of iOS is nearly ready to go public. Dev-Team member MuscleNerd revealed on Twitter yesterday that all issues with the 4.3.1 firmware are now fixed, and that the unlock will be go live after some testing.

The new version of ultrasn0w will not unlock new basebands, however – it’s purely for users that have already performed the hack on their device and wish to retain the unlock when they update to iOS 4.3.1.

When it’s ready, ultrasn0w will be available to download through Cydia. Users updating to 4.3.1 will need to use the latest version of PwnageTool (Mac) or Sn0wBreeze (Windows) to preserve their baseband.

[via iPhone Download Blog

The official Facebook application for the iPhone has been updated today, introducing new features that allow you to view your friends’ Places check ins in map view, check into events you’re attending, and ‘unfriend’ people directly from your device. The update also makes improvements to the news feed and the notifications UI.

If you’re lucky enough to posses an iPhone 4 and haven’t already downloaded freebie Ball Pit, do it now and play around with it a little. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Pretty cool, right? For those of you at work or still saving for an iPhone 4, the game is basically a first-person shooter set in the middle of a what looks like a holodeck from the later Star Trek shows, with the objective of shooting down the spheres that happen to be floating around in the big room with you.

On Sunday an untethered jailbreak for devices running iOS 4.3.1 was finally released by the Dev-Team in the shape of PwnageTool and redsn0w. However, early jailbreakers are reporting that the exploit is causing issues with Wi-Fi on their devices.

I0n1c – aka Stefan Esser – is the brains behind the jailbreak, and confirmed the problem in a tweet earlier today. However, it seems users are only experiencing the issue with certain routers.

Lumiere is yet another photo effects filter app for iOS, but before you sigh and say: “Oh no, not another Hipstamatic clone,” I want you to pause and give this one a second look.

What makes Lumiere different isn’t that it applies filter effects to your photos – Hipstamatic and a gazillion other apps already do that – but the way it lets you flick from one effect to the next.

Twitter for iPhone users, rejoice: the #dickbar is dead.

Officially called the QuickBar, it was nicknamed in honour of Twitter boss Dick Costolo.

It was supposed to be a discovery tool for Twitter users – a way for them to find out what’s happening, to see trending topics and sponsored tweets.

There was only one small problem: pretty much everyone hated it.

Those of you of a certain age might remember the Game Boy Camera, an ingenious add-on for the original Nintendo Game Boy that snapped tiny 128×112 pictures.

It was briefly one of the most exciting ideas in handheld consoles – suddenly the Game Boy wasn’t just for games, it was for other fun stuff too!

Better still, if you had the money to spare, you could buy a Game Boy Printer and print out your pixellated works of art to give to friends.

All that’s ancient history, which is precisely what makes it the ideal starting point for an iOS app.

It’s called 8 Bit Pocket Camera, and it’s lots of fun and, at just a dollar, excellent value.

Everybody’s favorite jumping-as-high-as-possible iOS game, Doodle Jump, has just been updated with something cool: two player mode.

You can now challenge other Doodle Jumpers via Game Center, using your iDevice’s wifi connection. In two-player mode there’s a finish line, first player to reach it is the winner.

To spice things up, power-ups are shared between the two players. He who jumps higher, faster, gets to use them first.

“What a shame there’s no Doodle Jump for iPad,” you might whisper sadly. Whisper not: makers Lima Sky say Doodle Jump for iPad is on its way to us right now.

Signs are everywhere that Apple’s iDevices are gaining business cred. Apperian, a development firm making software that allows business to create and manage their own apps, just won $9.5 million in venture capital funding, according to a press release.

Apperian’s star iOS product is a cloud-based platform called EASE they claim is the first to allow large-scale creation and management of apps in a business environment — pretty key if you’ve got, say, 150 salespeople all needing access to the same sales app and whining for support every 15 minutes.

That Apperian managed to net the funding means that investors think EASE will increasingly allow iPads and iPhone’s to elbow their way into the enterprise world — traditionally the domain of RIM and the Blackberry. Apperian is also working on an Android-based version of EASE.